


Small Town

by Morethancupcake



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Break Up, Carpenter Dean, College Student Castiel, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up Together, High School, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Mechanic Dean, Mention of Lisa and Cassie, Mention of past childhood trauma, Moving In Together, Orphan Castiel, Sam and Castiel's friendship, Underage Kissing, Younger Castiel, mention of Cas/other, mention of dean/others
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 18:43:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7000012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morethancupcake/pseuds/Morethancupcake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean dreams about a future far away from this small town. He dreams of sunny places and girls with gentle eyes.</p><p>Then he meets Castiel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Town

**Author's Note:**

> I offered a few prompts for my birthday, and the lovely Leslie asked for fluff and high school AU. It's not exactly what you asked, but I promise I'll revisit this soon.
> 
> Thank you for prompting me !

It's not that Dean doesn't like this place.

Small town, Uncle Bobby's kitchen, the Roadhouse, everything.

It's kind of always the same, nothing changes in these small towns. And he's seen a lot of those before.

Nothing to hold him here for too long, nothing for Sammy either.

In a few years, Sammy will leave to be a genius, somewhere, and Dean will follow. Maybe he'll go somewhere warm, somewhere with pretty girls with dark brown eyes and golden skin, somewhere else.

 

Dean likes new faces. He likes how the town suddenly stops staring at him to dissect the newcomers, the new blood. 

He can breathe for a second.

 

The three new boys at the farm are nice, and polite, according to Ellen. One of them is a little firecracker, says Jo, hilarious and crazy. 

The tall one, the blond, is a menace, says Missouri with a smirk. Better lock your daughters and your sons. 

What about the third, asks Sammy, eager for a friend, for someone to understand him better.

"The younger Novak ?" Missouri smiles her gentle smile. "You'll like him."

 

Sam loves him.

 

The older, the blond asshole is named Luke. He's older than Dean, so not exactly a boy anymore, and he watches the town as if ready to burn it to the ground.

Dean hates him immediately.

 

The other one, the middle brother, Gabriel, is too much of a enigma for them to figure him out. He only talks to Sammy, even helps him once or twice. Dean never gets to really know him.

 

Castiel.

The younger one is called Castiel. And Sam loves him.

It's cute almost, it's what people call puppy love, and Dean understands just why when he catch them napping together in the sun, their books fallen in the grass.

Sammy follows Cas around, just like a puppy, and it makes Dean sad, again, to notice how brilliant his little brother is, and how truly alone he can be, sometimes.

 

Castiel is pure. Castiel has bright blue eyes and stupid pink lips. When he laughs, he winkles his nose and shows his perfect teeth, and his pink tongue, and Dean's heart is suddenly too big for his chest.

It's not the same feeling he had for Cassie, or Lisa. No, it's not the same fireworks, it's not the same, really.

Castiel turns thirteen, and Dean bugs Uncle Bobby so they can surprise him with a party. It's almost sad, these lost boys in Bobby's backyard, around a weirdly shaped cake and Ellen's lemonade, but Sam is laughing, and Castiel can't stop smiling, and even Luke seems content to just sit and play with the tiny flowers in the dirt.

Castiel turns thirteen, and Dean doesn't need to hold his hand or kiss him to know he'll probably love him forever.

 

Luke knows. Gabriel knows. Hell, even Missouri notices and tries to give him the Talk at some point. It never goes too far, Dean is a big brother, he knows what he can and can't do.

He drives them around, and watches them have sleepovers. He's there when Sam kisses Jess for the first time, and he's there when Cas gets his heat broken by an older guy he met during summer. 

Dean takes him for silent drives around, the fields dancing in front of them. He doesn't offer advices, or try to console. Castiel falls asleep on his shouler, and he, too, tries to forget the tall blond man who decided to play with a teenage boy's heart.

 

Dean turns twenty one, and it's not the big affair he used to dream of as a kid. Uncle Bobby hugs him, before grumbling about women and alcohol. Sammy, already so tall and so sweet hands him the eveloppe filled with half of his salary at the farm, and Dean suddenly feels old, and sad.

Castiel kisses him.

Castiel kisses him, bold and scared, his hands shaking and his lips searching with a hint of tongue, of more, and Dean's dreams of faraway cities are blown away.

Castiel smiles, and asks him very seriously if Dean would consider him as a boyfriend, and Dean fights the need to touch his own lips, just to be sure this isn't another dream, another fantasy.

 

Castiel is seventeen, and Luke casually mentions gutting him if anything happens to his baby brother.

 

It's not that Dean doesn't like this place.

But when Castiel tells him about college, and scholarships, about the heavy enveloppes and Gabriel's tears, Dean can feel is emptiness, and longing.

He holds the younger boy's face in his hands, and he tries not to run away, not to do stupid things, because Castiel is happy, but scared, and he's ready to throw away his future just so he can't keep Dean, and Dean never felt so important before, so valued.

So loved.

 

Castiel kisses him goodbye, and kisses him again. Dean can't see the blue, lost in tears, and if he sobs in the car on his way back, no one needs to know.

Sammy is on the other side of the country, the other side of the world, it seems, and Dean feels like he was robbed, like his life was taken away from him.

 

He misses the books everywhere, the laughter, Hell, even the smell of Sammy's room. He goes to work, and laughs with Uncle Bobby and Ash. He fixes car, and smiles politely at the people coming from the city to see Uncle Bobby. They watch him move, they try to get him for a drink, for lunch, anything.

One of the bold ladies gives him a huge tip, and whispers things about how things could be easier for him. He pockets the money and disappears. It doesn't make him laugh anymore.

He buys books for his boys, and invite Bobby for a burger. 

Life is good, life is dull, and boring.

 

Castiel's face on his computer screen every night makes up for it.

 

Summer is Dean's favorite time of the year. Summer means strawberry pies, and barbecue sandwiches. Summer means trips to the lake and beers outside.

Summer means Castiel's body longer, bigger, next to his, Castiel's kisses tasting like ice tea, Castiel's moans in his ears at night.

 

It makes things easier, maybe. Castiel kisses him goodbye with the same intensity, but Dean knows, he's known or a while this is not something he can fight. He doesn't want to fight it.

Still they make mistakes. They yell on the phone, and they do stupid things. Castiel comes back for a weekend, just to beg at Dean's door, and Dean wonders if this, all of this, is worth it, worth the pain, worth the panic in his chest and the hurt.

Of course it is.

And in September, after years swearing he'll their small town leave as soon as he can, Dean and Cas move in together in a small appartment, in the city Dean was so sure to love.

He doesn't hate it, because Cas is here. Cas, still wary and scared of breaking his heart again, Cas still so fucking young, sometimes. Cas.

 

Dean takes classes during the day. He learns to carve wood, he learns the name of his teacher, Cain, and soo enough, he has a job, and a new future in front of him. Castiel brushes the sawdust from his hair, and they sit close to the heater, eating from the same gigantic bowl of pasta.

Dean can taste the tomato and basil on Cas' tongue, and wonders is this is what happiness taste like.

 

They don't talk about their past. They don't talk about John's phonecalls, and Dean's grip on a blottle after. They don't talk about what happened to the Novak's family, why Castiel is sometimes still a little boy scared and hurt, no, they don't talk about it.

They hint. 

That night, in front on Dean's door, Castiel tells him how scared he is, and Dean gets it, he does, because the words are all too familiar for him.

So slowly, carefully, Dean tries to open up. 

It's not perfect, it's silted, and frustrating. Dean sometimes feel they don't speak the same language, and it hurts, it's ridiculous how words can hurt so fucking much. But Castiel tries, he tries so hard. Castiel hurt too, but he reaches for Dean, everytime, and Dean takes him in his arms, everytime.

 

It's not like Dean doesn't like this place.

This is home, in a way. He can go to the Roadhouse and remember all the good and bad nights, and the weirdly fun shifts joking with Jo and Ash. If he follows the tired road it's Uncle Bobby's house, the hugs and the smell of coffee.

There's Miss Moseley peanut butter ice cream, and Gabriel's whiskey. Lisa's smile when she waves at him, and the smell of pine trees.

Castiel mentions the little house, closer to the woods. It's not too far from Bobby's, he says. I could run and have breakfast with him everyday, he says.

The house is small, and not in a great shape.

"Nothing we can't work on." Luke says, and Dean wonders, just when the older Novak brother became a part of his life. "I can help, Gabriel too. You too can stay with us at the farm, if you want."

They stay at Uncle Bobby's. Dean might be in love, but he isn't an idiot.

 

"You're building me a house." Castiel says, one morning, his eyes still sleepy, studying Dean over his teacup. 

"I guess." Dean says, and suddenly, because he's thinking about the plans he emailed to Cain, and the stairs is building, he smiles. "Yes, I am."

"There's something about it. In the bible." They smile. 

The air smell like summer, and pine trees.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading ! :) If you liked it, please consider leaving kudos or comments, this is a sure way to make me really happy !
> 
> You can find me on tumblr : http://iwanttopizzamanyou.tumblr.com/post/145061323974/small-town
> 
>  
> 
> This is the part of the notes where I remind you to drink water, stretch and eat something :) Take good care of you.


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